Understanding the Cell Microprocessor

If you have heard anything about the recent announcements of the PS3 and the development of something called a "cell processor", then you'll want to read Anandtech's article on the architecture. Anand finds out some damn detailed info on the new processing sytle, and what it might mean to you, very soon.

Cell's architecture is similar to the next version of Microsoft's Xbox and upcoming PC microprocessors in that it is heavily multithreaded. The next Xbox will execute between 3 and 6 threads simultaneously, while desktop PC microprocessors will execute between 2 - 4. The problem is that while Xbox 2/360/Next and the PC will be using multiple general purpose cores, Cell relies on more specialized hardware to achieve its peak performance